Kristen MacLaren-Jamieson helps save a life at Cataraqui Golf and Country Club
By: Adam Stanley
On a Wednesday after Labour Day at Kingston, Ontario's Cataraqui Golf and Country Club, there’s a tight-knit group of men who like to continue their summertime routine of teeing it up through the afternoon.
This, however, was no usual Wednesday. Kristen MacLaren-Jamieson, the Head Teaching Professional at the storied Kingston course and long-time PGA of Canada member, saved a life.
It’s a stretch of time she’ll never forget, but she hopes the result shines a light on the importance of fellow PGA of Canada pros staying certified in CPR and using Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs).
“You can never have enough persons certified and enough people knowing your emergency procedures at your facilities because of what potentially could happen at a golf course,” she says. “It’s a team effort.”
MacLaren-Jamieson, who is also the Head Coach of the Queen's University Golf Team, was rewarded with a pair of kicks from Ecco in the PGA of Canada’s #ThanksForSteppingUp contest, after being nominated by a peer. But she says the most important thing is that the Cataraqui member will live to see another golf season.
A back-shop attendant came running into the pro shop that Wednesday afternoon, MacLaren-Jamieson says, asking if anyone knew First Aid. A member was not breathing after suffering a cardiac arrest.
If there was any situational good news, MacLaren-Jamieson says, it’s that the health episode occurred just off the first fairway – essentially in the middle of the club’s hub for activities.
“You could see something was majorly wrong,” says MacLaren-Jamieson, who sprinted towards the member and called over to the 18th green, adjacent to the first fairway, asking if anyone knew CPR.
Luckily, someone who was just finishing their round was a nurse. That member joined MacLaren-Jamieson and turned over the male member who had quickly turned blue. The nurse started CPR while MacLaren-Jamieson ran back, 100 yards, to the pro shop.
Upon her arrival, the Chief Operating Officer of the club was in the shop. He was brought up to speed – an ambulance was on the way. Speaking to the COO was another member who also happened to be a nurse. She came with MacLaren-Jamieson in the cart and started the AED.
“Where it happened… it was just fate. It was near everything. We weren’t over and far away, like on No. 12 or 13. We had one nurse on 18, she did the CPR, while I grabbed the AED and another nurse came with me to put the pads on him,” says MacLaren-Jamieson, who has been certified for CPR and AED usage since 2002.
At that point the defibrillator was showing there was no pulse detected, but only about five minutes had gone by. The ambulance was there quickly, given Cataraqui’s proximity to Kingston’s hospitals, and drove down the first fairway.
“He survived,” says MacLaren-Jamieson, “and the paramedic said it was because of us.”
The doctors, MacLaren-Jamieson says, did not want the member to tee it up for the rest of the year. He was a new curler, though, and did threw a few rocks this past winter. He loves to golf and loves to practice, so MacLaren-Jamieson says the member (with a surgically-repaired heart) will be back to play again this spring.
In a moment of levity, MacLaren-Jamieson says the shop got a call from this member’s partner in the following days to check on something. He wanted to know, in a typical golf-obsessed fashion, if she had his range finder.
“He left it at the golf course, of course,” MacLaren-Jamieson says with a laugh, “he wanted to know if it was in a safe spot.”
MacLaren-Jamieson took the balance of that day off. It was an emotional, and different, kind of day. For almost two decades she’s been certified in those life-saving tactics, but that day she had to use them.
“You always take CPR and the training to use the (defibrillator) and you don’t think you will ever need to use it,” she says. “I never did… until I had to. It was a shock.”
Thankfully, though, MacLaren-Jamieson did all the right things.
She was so appreciative of all the help she had that day, too. And, even happier to know that a member of her club – where she’s worked for nearly a decade-and-a-half – will continue to have the opportunity to play the game he loves.